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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23600968">Regrets</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennity/pseuds/jennity'>jennity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, angsty au drabble</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:54:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>971</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23600968</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennity/pseuds/jennity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tiny little AU drabble. Chiyo brought Sakura from the brink of death, but she had another act of mercy left in her before she gave herself to revive her Kazekage.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chiyo &amp; Sasori, Sakura &amp; Chiyo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Regrets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>Chiyo knew she was going to die. She had to. She needed to fix things, to make up for how things turned out. She needed to rectify what she had let happen. She had brought Sakura back from the brink of death only to send her dearest there instead, and at the hands of the very puppets for whom she intended to give her life in the first place. He could have stopped them, she knew. He could have changed the outcome</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He </span>
  <em>
    <span>could </span>
  </em>
  <span>have changed the outcome</span>
  <em>
    <span>….</span>
  </em>
  <span>But he had found a sort of morbid comfort in dying in the arms of his parent-puppets, and had accepted his fate. What was left for him, anyway? If two people, one of whom was a mere child and the other an old woman, could be so formidable to him, did he really deserve to live on in perpetua? He didn’t think so. If he wasn’t strong enough to survive, he deserved to die, and this is the closest he’ll ever be to being embraced by his parents again. This was as good a time as any, he supposed, to give up. It was unlike him, both to let his guard down - to let himself be defeated - and to share the pointless information</span>
  <em>
    <span> the girl </span>
  </em>
  <span>seemed so keen on extracting from him. He grimaced, both in pain and at the knowledge that she would be pursuing the old Snake after she moved on from his death. Bitterly, he imagined the girl defeating Oorochmaru, punching right through his pale smug face. Unlikely, to be sure, but he wished that she would. If she could take </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span> down, then certainly she could skin the snake, right? He didn’t want to think of the girl dying at the other man’s feet, if only because that would mean that the Snake was by extension stronger than him, and he knew that to be false. He had underestimated the little girl, and begrudgingly respected her enough for defeating him. He closed his eyes after confessing to the girl and relented, ready to give up his life. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Sakura, seeing his eyelids sink close in what appeared to be a semblance of peace, closed her own and collapsed in chakra exhaustion. Now was her chance, Chiyo supposed. If she waited any longer, she would not be leaving this cave alive to help her Kazekage. Her heart broke at the sight of her grandson morbidly embraced by the very puppets she intended to bring to life for him, speared on their weapons and yet the most peaceful she has seen him since their deaths. Should she leave well enough alone? Would his change of heart carry over, or would he seek revenge? Could she live with the consequences of her actions, yet again uncertain of whether what she was doing was truly the right choice. She knew she had messed up before and knew that this was undoubtedly a mistake as well. But in the end, she couldn’t let herself let him go without atoning for her own sins and wishing he would his. She shuffled forward, avoiding the limp body of the girl she had grown so fond of. The sixteen year old was unbelievable, both in talent and grit. She was admirable, and though she may not have been a prodigy she was certainly making up for that in every other aspect in which she was exceeding expectations and forcing her way through expectations. She hoped the girl never had to deal with the pain that her grandson endured. She reached out with her chakra strings to disengage his parent puppets, the body of her precious person collapsing on the ground between them. Chiyo reached out, blue chakra already glowing from her fingertips. She was unsurprised at Sakura’s chakra exhaustion, and now she was risking her own. She was determined to try, though. With the weapons no longer skewering him, he looked as if he were just sleeping. She hoped that was the case. She felt the light thrum of the core he had created, simultaneously admiring his skill and scowling at the fact that he had debased himself so thoroughly as to remove almost all of his humanity. She hoped there was a shred left intact, and convinced herself to believe there was, that his demise and confessions were proof of that, that he could redeem himself. She pulled the core from his chest, blue chakra surging into it, vibrating in a way that alarmed her. When she had done this with Sakura, it had flowed so smoothly through the girl’s body, like she was washing water over her to clean her wounds. Clenching the core of her grandson in her wrinkled and aching hands, she braced herself against the violent shaking. It wasn’t long until it slowed, turned to trembling and hummed on its own without her chakra. In an effort to stave off his return at least until she could remove the girl from the scene, Chiyo rolled it as far away from herself as she could. By the time she had tried to help Sakura up, the girl had recovered enough to limp away to find her sensei and her friend. She was grateful to Chiyo for her assistance, and part of Chiyo ached at the knowledge that the girl would not be so grateful after she was dead and gone and Sakura found out about her attempt to revive the man who had tried to kill them both. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It wasn’t until later, her chakra completely depleted, when she was letting her soul go in exchange for that of her Kazekage, that she wanted to apologize to Sakura for the betrayal. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>But knew it would fall flat. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>She wasn’t sorry. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Not for bringing him back. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>She was sorry for losing him in the first place.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Was just thinkin' about what would have happened if Sasori hadn't actually died when he did. Chiyo had a lot of regrets in life, and I don't know if she really would have walked away from his lifeless corpse the way she did.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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